Hutchinson ? The opening of the Kansas Underground Salt Museum again will be delayed while emergency equipment is installed at the 650-foot-deep museum.

Linda Schmitt, director of the Reno County Historical Society, said two upcoming group tours of the yet-to-be-completed museum have been canceled because of safety concerns and that other tours might also be canceled.

“From the get-go on this project we have probably been overly cautious,” Schmitt said. “But we want to ensure that the salt mine is a safe, pleasant experience.”

Schmitt said the difficulty of creating the nation’s first underground salt museum has led to the delays. The museum had been scheduled to open in September.

“I don’t think anybody had any idea just how difficult some of this was going to be,” Schmitt said.

Although there have been no problems in the operation of the museum’s double-decker elevator, which travels 650 feet below the earth’s surface to the museum’s mine floor, Schmitt said a rescue system is needed in the improbable event the elevator malfunctions.

Frank Alexander, project manager of the museum, said engineers were designing a safety beam for the top of the elevator shaft. He said the museum has worked with the Hutchinson Fire Department to buy mountain climbing equipment, and firefighters will practice rescue operations in the elevator shaft before the museum opens.

Alexander estimated the new safety measures could take two to three weeks to install, pushing back an already delayed starting date. No timetable was given for the official opening of the museum.